1. Field of the Invention
An aspect of this disclosure relates to an information processing apparatus, a conference system, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the recent availability of broadband Internet lines, communications involving digital data such as video data, audio data, images, and documents are being widely performed. For example, there exists a video conference system where such digital data is sent and received via Internet lines to perform a teleconference between remote locations.
In a video conference system, for example, images and sounds of participants of a teleconference are captured and converted into digital data by a terminal in a conference room at one location and the digital data is sent to a terminal in a conference room at another location where the images are displayed on a display and the sounds are output from a speaker. Thus, a video conference system makes it possible to perform a conference between remote locations as if the participants are in the same conference room.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2008-236553, for example, discloses a video conference system that uses a peer-to-peer network to enable respective terminals of conference participants to cache data and thereby makes it possible to play back the cached data at each of the terminals.
Here, in a video conference system employing a cloud network, disconnection of participating sites (i.e., remote sites participating in a video conference) may occur due to, for example, a decrease in the available network bandwidth, packet losses caused by a network failure, or other accidents (e.g., a blackout and a operational error).
When a video conference is held among more than two participating sites (e.g., five or six sites) and one of the participating sites is disconnected, the terminal at the disconnected participating site cannot receive data and therefore cannot play back the data. Accordingly, participants at the disconnected participating site cannot know what has been discussed in the video conference from when the disconnection occurs until when the connection is restored.